


In My Time Of Dying

by Jinx (jinx37kat)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-31
Updated: 2006-07-31
Packaged: 2018-09-16 16:41:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9280325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jinx37kat/pseuds/Jinx
Summary: Alternate ending to episode 2.1, In My Time Of Dying.  It was written prior to airing based on the sides for the episode.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Warning #1: This story takes place during the first episode of the second season. It is my interpretation of "what could have been" just from the sides alone.  
> Warning #2: Character Death

When Dean woke up, he was alone in the hospital room. He blinked several times, trying to clear the cobwebs from his vision. _What the hell happened?_ He thought to himself as he slowly sat up.

Suddenly, images of the truck barreling into his beloved Impala assaulted his mind and he jumped out of bed and rushed out of the door.

A nurse brushed by him. “Hey! Can you help me?” Dean asked as he spun around trying to follow her. But the nurse ignored him and continued on her way. “Bitch,” he muttered under his breath.

He walked up to the nurses’ station and leaned on the counter. “Excuse me? Can you tell me where John and Samuel Winchester are?”

The nurse behind the counter also ignored him and it was beginning to piss Dean off. His brother and father had to be in here somewhere and the nurses were acting like…

Dean froze for a moment and his eyes widened as the implications of being ignored crashed into his mind. He leaned over the counter and waved his hand in front of the nurse, who was typing in the computer at her station. 

She didn’t even acknowledge him.

Dean swallowed hard and backed away, stunned. 

No one could see him!

He quickly crossed the hall and went back into the room he’d come from and stopped short. He saw himself lying still in the bed connected to various machines; chest moving slowly with the help of a ventilator, IV connected to his arm and another to his hand; several lines and wires hooked up from his chest to his finger monitoring his heartbeat, blood pressure, and everything else in between.

He sat down hard on the empty chair by his bed. 

“So,” he said to no one in particular. “I’m not a ghost, but I’m not quite alive either. That’s just great.”

Dean sat for a moment trying to think on how to fix his new situation when an image of Sam flashed through his mind. It was then that he realized that he still didn’t know whether or not his brother and dad were okay. Putting the strangeness of what was going on with himself aside, Dean stood up and left his room to search out his family.

 

It took peering into several rooms before he found the right one. Sam was sitting in the chair next to Dad’s bed. 

Dean breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing both his father and brother safe and relatively unharmed.

Dad was in the bed, right leg on top of the covers, a wide bandage wrapped around his thigh where Sam had shot him. His face was littered with small cuts and there was a bandage at the corner of his right eye.

Dean walked into the room and stood at the foot of the bed, staring at his father, reassured that he was all right. Dean then looked over at Sam, who was slumped in the chair, head tilted at an awkward angle. Sam’s face also was sprinkled with small cuts, and he had a large square piece of gauze taped to his left temple. His right wrist was wrapped in an ace bandage. 

Dean let out a shaky sigh. “God, I’m glad you guys are okay.”

Of course neither one had heard Dean; and Dad continued staring at his sleeping son.

Dean felt an ache deep within his chest, but it had nothing to do with his own injuries. It was a pain brought on by, not jealously per se, but by the fact that his dad and brother were here together and Dean, or Dean’s body, was laying alone in another room. He could understand his dad not being with him, confined to his own bed, but Sam…

Dean looked down at his hands. Maybe the demon had been right after all. Maybe his family _didn’t_ care about him… didn’t _need_ him the way **he** needed _them_.

This new, or not so new, and uncomfortable realization had him looking back up at his dad, and he suddenly couldn’t face the love that shone from his father’s eyes as he watched his youngest son sleep. Swallowing hard, Dean blinked back the wetness that had filmed his eyes and quickly left the room.

 

When he entered his own room, a woman, who was sitting on the bed beside Dean’s body, looked up, taking Dean by surprise. 

“You can see me?” Dean asked, shocked.

She gave Dean a soft, gentle smile and nodded. “Yes.”

Dean moved further into the room. “Who are you?”

“My name’s Tessa.” Tessa patted the bed beside her, inviting Dean to sit down.

Dean didn’t come any closer than those few first steps as he continued to eye her suspiciously. There was something about her that seemed familiar, yet he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

“How can you see me?” Dean asked, hoping to pry the information out of her.

Tessa smiled again. It was a smile full of great wisdom. Something very alien for such a young woman.

“I think you know, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes widened. “How did you…?”

“Know your name?” Tessa interrupted.

Dean nodded.

“Reapers are supposed to know the names of the people they are claiming.”

Dean froze and he took a step back. “You’re no Reaper,” he breathed.

Tessa nodded her head. “’Fraid so.”

Dean arched an eyebrow and forced himself to relax, stepping forward again. Allowing a smirk to form on his lips, Dean said, “You’re much prettier than the last Reaper I met.”

Tessa smiled. “Thank you.”

“I wasn’t aware that Reapers could make themselves appear however they want.”

Tessa shrugged a shoulder. “Most don’t. They like the scary guy look. I prefer to bring people over as calm as possible, not scaring them to death.” She grinned at her own joke. “Pardon the pun.”

Dean tipped his head sideways and glared at her assessingly. “Ah, so is _that_ what you’re here to do?”

Again, Tessa nodded. 

“Well, I hate to break it to you, honey, but I ain’t going anywhere.” Dean settled himself on the chair next to his bed, stretching out his legs in front of him, trying to put on an air of casualness.

Tessa didn’t appear to be fooled.

“Death is nothing to fear, Dean,” Tessa said as she rose and approached Dean. She leaned over him and brushed his cheek with her hand, gentle, warm. It was almost seductive. “And now it’s your time to go.”

Dean jumped up from the chair and put some space between them. “Look, I’m sure you get this a lot, but you gotta make an exception, cut me a break.

Tessa’s eyes saddened and she nodded her head slowly. “Stage three. Bargaining.”

“I’m serious!” Dean stated. “My family’s in danger. We’re kind of in the middle of this… war. They need me.”

“The fight’s over, Dean.”

“No. It isn’t.”

Tessa sighed. “It is for you. Dean, you’re not the first soldier I’ve plucked from the field. They all feel the same – they can’t go; they’re indispensable; victory hangs in the balance. But they’re wrong. The battle goes on. The world keeps spinning without them.”

Dean stepped forward, pleading with heartfelt emotion. “Please. My brother could die without me.”

“Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. Nothing you can do about it.”

“I can if you let me live,” Dean mumbled under his breath as he turned away.

Tessa took a step towards him. “It’s a warrior’s death. Honorable. One of the best you can have.”

Dean snorted. “I’ll pass on my seventy-two virgins, thanks. I’m not really into prude chicks, anyway.”

Tessa smiles. “That’s funny. You’re very cute.”

Dean growled, temperature rising. “There’s no such thing as an honorable death. Okay? I’m just gonna rot in the ground, and my family’s gonna die.” Making his final decision, Dean turned his back on her. “I don’t care what you do. I’m not going.”

Tessa sighed and shrugged. “Well. I can’t make you come with me. But… Look. You’re not getting back in your body,” she gestured to Dean’s motionless shell on the bed, “that’s just the facts. So, you can stay here for years. Disembodied. Scared. Confused. Eventually, you’ll grow angry. Then enraged.”

Dean’s eyebrows drew together. “What are you saying?”

“Dean. How do you think angry spirits are born? They can’t let go and they can’t move on. You’ll become the very same thing that you hunt.”

At those words, Dean’s entire body deflated. He sagged in the chair and stared at his comatose body.

“Don’t you think I can see it?” Tessa asked.

“See what?” Dean muttered absently as he continued to stare at himself in the hospital bed.

“Beneath the bravado? All that pain and hurt and suffering? You’re tired, Dean. You’ve had to bear so much… more than almost anyone. It’s time to rest. It’s time to put the pain behind you.”

Dean looked up at Tessa with tired eyes. “And go where?”

Tessa’s smile was soft and peaceful. “I can’t tell you that, Dean.” But her compassionate eyes told him everything he needed to know. “It’s the moment of truth. You only get one shot at this. No changing your mind later. So what’s it gonna be?”

Dean looked at his practically lifeless body, laying unmoving on the bed, machines keeping him alive, and thought about what Tessa had said. He was tired. There was no denying that. He had been fighting this fight, his _father’s_ fight, his father’s _revenge_ , since he was four years old.

He had tried to convince Tessa that his family needed him, but having seen his dad and Sam in their dad’s hospital room earlier, and seeing how empty is own hospital room was… It was just more proof that his family didn’t need him as much as he had wanted… or wished.

And it was with this understanding that Dean finally looked up at Tessa with his decision.

“Can I see Sam and Dad one more time?”

Tessa gave Dean a sympathetic smile and nodded. “Of course.”

As they left, Dean didn’t notice the machines suddenly going off behind him, sending the nurses rushing into his room.

 

They walked out of his room and moved down the corridor towards his dad’s room. As they walked in silence, Dean reflected on how ready he had been to die the first time a Reaper had come for him all those months ago. Perhaps not ready, but more accepting. And that had been _before_ learning the truth from the demon about his family’s feelings toward him. 

The truth was made worse by the demon who had been speaking with his father’s voice. The demon/father who had told Dean that his family didn’t need him as much as he needed them. It was a truth that Dean had felt in the deepest, darkest, corner of his heart for a long, long time, but never wanted to acknowledge in the light of day.

They _never_ really needed him. Not for a long time. If they had at all. It had taken awhile for Dean to realize that taking care of people who didn’t want to be taken care of was not the same thing as being needed.

A housekeeper keeps a house clean, but is that person really _needed_? Not if you can do the job yourself. A cook provides meals to the family, but is that person really _needed_? Not when you can cook yourself. A babysitter/nanny is great to have to take care of a child, but is that person really _needed_? Not when you can or should do the job yourself. When two people fight, is a moderator really _needed_ to break up the fight or should they just come to blows and be done with it?

Dean had been all those things and more. But they were things that his family didn’t need or want… didn’t care that he did all those things for them.

No, Dean decided, he really wasn’t needed. His presence in his family’s life was not one of we-need-you-in-our-lives need. Not like they were for him. Dean was more of a convenience-need rather than a must-have need. And now that he understood that, he realized that he could leave with the Reaper this time around.

He was tired anyway.

Dean had been so caught up in his own mind that he hadn’t realized that they were standing inside his dad’s room.

He watched and listened as Sam and Dad discussed their next moves as far as finding the demon was concerned.

Dean snorted softly, self-deprecatingly. He had thought that Sam understood that finding and killing the demon was not the end-all be-all of their existence, but here he was – planning strategies with their father as Dean lay dying a few doors down.

Alone.

Dean turned to Tessa. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I’m ready.”

Tessa nodded her head and reached out a hand, placing it on his shoulder sympathetically. “They’ll be okay.”

Dean nodded. “They always were,” he whispered to himself.

Dean looked at his family one last time, a soft sad smile curling the corner of his mouth.

“Goodbye.”

He faded away before the doctor entered John’s room with the news.

 

Finis  
July 31, 2006


End file.
